Kashmir is the core and controversial issue between two countries, India and Pakistan in South East Asia, which has not been resolved since 14^th of August 1947, when both countries got freedom from British imperialism. According to many historians, the British Rulers divided this sub-continent in unjustified way. As a result, both countries claim that Kashmir is its integral part. So, after the war in 1948, India has occupied on 43% and Pakistan holds 36% of Jammu and Kashmir territory.

Irrespective of the scenario at Indo-Pak government’s level, the movies produced by the Indian film industry, Bollywood has remained popular in Pakistani public. According to some film historians, during conflict and wars, especially after 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars, the Indian movies were officially banned by the Pakistani governments, but as a matter of fact, Pakistani people are still crazy and manage to watch these movies. However, these movies were smuggled illegally through the seaport or via overseas Pakistanis. This process was continue till to legalize Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) during General Zia-ul Haq regime.

Nowadays, in internet world, this is so easy and very common to access all types of movies in everywhere beyond the borders.

For the last few years, the Pakistani government has lifted the ban from Indian movies to exhibit in Pakistani cinemas due to many reasons. In fact, it allowed Pakistani artists and singers to work in the Bollywood films. Many films have been equally popular in Pakistan and India including “My Name is Khan, Fanaa, Fiza, Ek tha Tiger, Barfi” etc. These movies were available on internet. Indian movies are now released by local media entities and are exhibited in Pakistani cinemas. The elements of nationalism and patriotism are also major segment of Bollywood war romantic and mixed movies. In this regard, the editors of Indian book “Filming the Line of Control” describe the history:

“Discovery of the war films has to be placed in the context of the rise of right wing politics during the 1980s. The eventually electoral victory of the Bharatia Janata Party (BJP) in 1998 and the box office success of “Border” (Datta, 1997).

The editors further write about the effects of these most effective wars in media:

“There is clearly anxiety and excitement over the perceived power of media wars on the  one hand, it warrants anxiety and fears, while belief in media-effects makes it a target to be co-opted for the purposes of propaganda…..Right wing politicians have always seen mass media as propagating conservative ideas of nationalism and patriotism…”

( article, edited by, Kishore Budha, Genre Development in the age of markets and nationalism. “the war film”, P:6)

The editor’s claim about the emotion and intellect in Indian films and their effects and feelings on Indian nationals that:

“Naturally, Indian cinema has contributed immensely to the cultivation of the uniting and uplifting feeling of nationalism. Patriotic films as a special and much admired genes of Indian cinema have had a tremendous impact on our people, cutting across religions, regional, linguistic and economic identities.” (ibid, P:7).

The two elements of Indian nationalism, and patriotism, are ultimately second face and mouth piece of Indian foreign policy. The Kashmir issue is always very focal point of Indian foreign policy since partition of sub-continent. Indian film makers are trying to reflect this significant point in their some movies as well.

The elements of nationalism in Indian films also accept by the Indian films historians as follows:

“Nevertheless, if today me accept that, far from being a straight forward move towards nationalism, secularism and democracy”, (Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, 1999).

Obliviously, this nationalism tends to Indian films industry towards Indian foreign policy particularly regarding Kashmir issue.

Objectives

1. To know the ratio of Pakistani youths Indian movies watching behavior.

2. To analyze the acceptance and effectiveness on Pakistani youths of the messages which are communicated regarding Kashmir policy of Indian government through its film industry.

Research questions

1. What is the percentage of Pakistani youths, who are watching usually Indian movie regarding Kashmir issue?

2. Whether they are accepting or influenced by these messages, which are sugar coated or propagated in these movies regarding Kashmir issue?

The communication theories of framing and simple model of communication feedback or effectiveness may be applied in this study.

Bollywood and Kashmir

Meanwhile as the Bollywood industry has virtually ignored the Kashmir dispute and its problems and remained fixed to love stories, there are few movies that can be related to Kashmir issue, its culture and people. The movies in that can be related to Kashmir include “Mission Kashmir, Fanaa, Lamhaa, Sikandir, and Tahaan”. Some of the popular movies on Kashmir are Mission Kashmir and Fanaa. Many other movies related to Kashmir do not receive much appreciation at the Blockbuster as well as in Pakistan. Some of them were even banned in Pakistan. However, these movies on Kashmir continue to serve an important purpose in projecting the Bollywood’s stance on Kashmir and influence of Indian foreign policy over Bollywood content that envisions Kashmir to be part of United India rather than Pakistan or stay independent.

India has a huge film industry Bollywood with heavy budget and the history of more than one century. It has efficiently used it to not only project the Hindu mythology, religion, traditions, culture and values but propagate the foreign policy of Indian government on Kashmir.

On the other hand, it is important to understand the role of Bollywood movies based on Kashmir in shaping public opinion. Through this study, the researcher tries to determine impact of Kashmir based movies on Pakistani youths. It will also determine if Indian movies based on Kashmir are viewed merely as Indian government’s propaganda or they think that Kashmir issue has been portrayed in a fair manner. We know that youths are the future of every country. They are going to be the ones who will frame policies, serve in the government in all official affairs and be the future’s rulers. However, they are the ones who can be easily influenced as well in one way or the other.

The way which youths take on Kashmir issue and propose its solutions can redefine Pakistan’s relationship with India. So, to mould their minds towards specific policies and agenda to introduce through media is very important and meaningful mission and Bollywood is trying to complete this important mission.

Objectives

1. To  identify whether the scenes and dialogues of Indian movies related to Kashmir issue have uniform, immediate and direct effects on Pakistani youths or not.  This will enable the researcher to identify if youths had received any impact of Indian movies on Kashmir.

2. To analyze whether the process of persuasion has been done through Indian movies to get the desired results and change the opinion of Pakistani youths in favor of Indian foreign policy.

Literature Review

Before this, no detailed study is available on this topic. However, some very brief research works are reviewed as under:

Jha (2004) mentions that Ashok Pandit, the Director of film Sheen, feels betrayed by other films on the subject of Kashmir militancy. Razdan (2008) criticizes Indian movies based on Kashmir in his blog post and pinpoints that Indian cinema only makes filmy blinded righteous nationalistic movies in which the hero has to save the nation; heroine has to sing and dance in front of the bad guys, whereas hero tries to seduce the bad people and forget them about nuking India.

Hayat (2009) researched in his dissertation titled “Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Bollywood Feature Films”, the case of Kashmir and Kargil Conflicts in movies during 2003-2006 that Indian films comprise content based on Indo Pak affairs propagate and distort the facts by exaggeration, gate keeping the opposite viewpoints and reviews or by framing it in a way that support their agenda.

Akhtar (2012) writes that Bollywood has long projected Kashmir as the eroticized landscape of the mind in the social imaginary of the Indians. Gupta  (2012) says that in the last three decades Kashmir is popular Hindi cinema has meant films about terror and militancy, almost always filtered through an Indian nationalistic lens. Malik (2012) writes that Kashmir was once a favored destination for film shooting with Bollywood heroes and heroines cavorting around Poplar trees on the Srinagar- Baramula Road. It was no longer, so thanks to the turmoil of terrorism.

A brief summary of the film and the dialogues is given below:

Mission Kashmir

Mission Kashmir is a film based on Kashmir which has two main characters. The first is Altaf, a Kashmiri boy who becomes a militant to avenge the killings of his parents who were killed in a raid by Indian forces. The second character is Inayat Khan, an SSP in Police (later promoted to Inspector General, (IG) who lost his son when the doctors refused to treat his son in hospital owing to Fatwa by a terrorist group headed by Malik ul Khan. Inayat Khan later tracks down the terrorist group and kill them in a house but unfortunately Altaf’s family gets killed as well. The house where Khan and his men raided was where Altaf and his family were treating Malik ul Khan. When the Indian forces stormed in the house, they killed everyone present there including the militants, Altaf’s parents and his sister. This left Altaf traumatized and he faints on the scene. After spending time in prison, he is taken to Khan’s home. Khan on his wife Neelima’s insistence brings him to home so that they could look after him as their son. At that time, whatever he remembered about the incident was a masked man who had killed his parents. He would start to have nightmares in which he would see his family being killed by the masked man. Meanwhile, Neelima and Khan took care of him just like their deceased son Irfan.  Altaf mixed up with them and even started calling Khan abba (Father) and his wife ammi (Mother). However, one day, while he was alone at his house, he found out pistol and the mask, the one that the same man wore who had killed Altaf’s parents. Altaf immediately recognized that Khan had killed his parents. As he was alone, he wore that mask and waited for Khan to return home. When Khan returned home, Altaf came out of his room and fired but remained unsuccessful.

Later, Altaf ran away brought up and brainwashed by Hilal, a mercenary who had fought in Afghanistan with Soviet Union. As, Altaf turns  20,  Hilal  and  his  men  are given the task  named Mission Kashmir by some third forces to kill Prime Minister (PM) India as he would visit Kashmir. Eventually, this would spark a revolution and Kashmir would be freed. The head of the terrorist group Hilal receives two million dollars to do this task from an independent group who are allegedly receiving instructions from the “top”. However, Hilal uses his most brave man Altaf (who had become an adult now) to complete Mission Kashmir. Meanwhile he would also encourage him to kill Inayat Khan who had killed his parents. Altaf executes various stages of mission Kashmir successfully and in the meanwhile also makes several attempts to kill Khan who has now become IG Jammu and Kashmir State but in vain, Meanwhile, Altaf also manages to meet his childhood love Sufia who had become a TV artist. For some part of the movie, Altaf and Sufia’s love story blossoms but when Sufia finds out that Altaf is a miltant, she breaks off her ties with him.

As Altaf moves on to the final stages of Mission Kashmir in which he planned to target Indian PM, Khan gets hold of Hilal and a few tapes that revealed Mission Kashmir. Inayat Khan makes a deal with Hilal and promised that if he could provide access to Altaf, his men wouldn’t kill Hilal and Mission Kashmir would go as planned. Hilal agreed and then they go to the site from where the PM was to be targeted with Missiles.

Later, on reaching the site, Hilal informs Altaf that he had brought a gift for him, that is IG khan. He tells him to finish him off quickly before they could launch a missile attack on temples and on Prime Minister. Altaf goes angry with Khan. During a brief fight, Khan tried to de radicalizeAltaf and tells him that Hilal has misused him to destroy Kashmir. Altafsoon realizes that Hilal had misused religion and put him on the wrong track. Later, Khan and Altaf form a duo, killsHilal and his men and makes the mission Kashmir unsuccessful.

During the film, various songs and poetry were used, that helped in pleading the case that the film focuses on. Some of the lines are:

“These conspiracies of the surroundings and the air have turned the land of gods bloody, who has written anarchy in the name of God here, Who has equated Cruelty and sins to Jihad”.

In another song, these lines are used but music has no language, Music holds Allah and Ram. The main characters in the movie were: IG Inayat Khan, Neelima, Altaf, Sufiaya, Hilal. Out of these, one was Hindu Neelima and the rest were Muslims. Neelima is a positive character. Among Muslims, those who hold high moral grounds include Sufiya and Inayat Khan. Negative includes Altaf and Hilal. Altaf is a character that sways between positive and negative.

Fanaa

Fanaa is also a valuable movie related to  Kashmir  issue that was released in 2006. This film, like “Mission Kashmir” carries two, a mix of love story and a lover who is associated with a terrorist organization Independent Kashmir Front (IKF) that claims to be fighting for the independence of Kashmir. The film begins with a Kashmiri girl named Xuni Malik who is blind but innocent and loving. She is shown as a patriotic Indian who sings National songs and loves her country. She goes with her friends for four days to New Delhi to perform at a ceremony. There, she meets a guy named Rehan. Rehan flirts with her but Xunifalls in love with him.  Eventually, Xuni stays with Rehan while she informed her parents on phone that she wanted to marry Rehan. Her parents agree and they start packing up to come to Delhi to marry them off.  Meanwhile, Xuni gets pregnant and Rehan takes to an eye specialist where they find that Xuni can actually see. Rehan leaves Xuni at the hospital and promises that he would come back after receiving her parents from the station. However Rehan was leaving not to come back as he was on secret mission within Delhi to target the Prime Minister via a bomb blast. He had been actually taking pictures of various sites and planning on it for days. While Xuni is being operated, Rehan executes his plan and leaves whereas Xuni is being informed that Rehan had actually died in a bomb blast. His torn apart clothes and muffler is given to Xuni.

However, after the Delhi blast, Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and anti-terrorism unit start investigating about the attacks and find out that it was carried out by one of IKF men- an independent terrorist organization that is shown to be fighting for Kashmir’s independence. IKF is shown as a terrorist organization that has attacked on Pakistani as well as Indian sites, stolen some equipment from India, Russia and Pakistan to make a nuclear missile and now they are working to steal a trigger that could help them launch a nuclear missile.  Reh-an is one of the key IKF men but intelligence agency have failed to get hold of his identity.

After the lapse of seven years, Rehan is shown as an IKF man who has infiltrated into the army unit that is supposed to protect the trigger that could help IKF launch their nuclear missiles. However, Rehan gets hold of the trigger and runs to give it to the head of IKF, his grandfather. Meanwhile, the Anti-terrorism unit catches him in the mountains of Kashmir and in the gunfight, he gets severely injured. Rehan manages to kill everyone but injuries and snow storm make him difficult to move and knocks at the door of one of Kashmiri house that is shown to be located in a deserted area. The house belongs to Xuni. Initially Xuni and his father don’t recognize him and take him as an injured Indian solider on a mission. Rehan also gets stuck there for some days due to bad weather. However, one day, Xuni gets to know that the injured solider is Rehan. After some drama, they marry. Meanwhile, due to snow storm, Anti-terrorism unit finds it hard to find to do search operation in the region. So they inform people through media about a terrorist who got injured and was hiding in the mountains of Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Rehan finds out that one of the Xuni’s uncle has radio transmitter and was offered to get in touch with his unit via transmitter. One day, when Rehan and Xuni’s father were getting ready to go to Xuni’sKernal Uncle’s house so that he could get in touch with his supposed army unit, his father finds out the trigger shown on TV and figures out that Rehan is the terrorist and IKF agent that is wanted by the police. He keeps quite, takes out the trigger and when they reach the Kernel Uncle’s house, Xuni’s father points gun at him and tells him that he would kill him for the sake of his country. Meanwhile, Rehan and Xuni’s father start fighting for the trigger. This eventually led to a tragic accident in which Xuni’s father falls from the hill top. Meanwhile, Rehan manages to contact his people and give them the location from where they could the trigger. He also kills the Kernal Uncle. Before Rehan returns, Xuni had found out the dead body of his father frozen in the ice and realized that her husband is the IKF agent. She goes onto the radio transmitter and informs the anti-terrorism squad about the trigger and Rehan who tells them not to give trigger to Rehan as this would kill everyone. They promised to reach the site next morning. In the meanwhile, Rehan snatches the trigger and promises Xuni that he was doing this to protect her and their child. As he leaves the house with the trigger and approaches the helicopter in which the IKF men were sitting to receive the trigger, Xuni fires at Rehan and kills him. Meanwhile, anti-terrorism unit reaches the site and fires at the IKF men and destroy their plane.  The last scene shows the grave of Rehan, Xuni and their child.

The conversation among different characters not only offers a historical background of the issue but also gives an impression that in Kashmir, non state actors are involved that want peace neither with India nor with Pakistan. And they are going for nefarious plans to achieve this.

Sikandir

Sikandir is another film that was launched in 2009 which has been dedicated to the children of Kashmir. Again in this film, there is a little bit of male-female friendship, some militants trying to sabotage peace, the army who is shown more arrogant in this film (thrashing people and even talking to the children in harsh tone) and Kashmiri politicians who ostensibly talk about peace and dialogue and stops militants from fighting and urges them to go towards peace. However, the film shows that children are being used by the militants as well as politicians to attack each other.

There is one main character of the film. A 14 year old Sikandir who originally belonged to Kupwara but later started living with his uncle and Aunt after his parents were killed by Jihadists 10 years ago. He is a good football player but he is a loner and being bullied by a bunch of kids. However, he manages his friendship with a girl named Nasreen who helps him in every difficult situation throughout the film.

One day, when Sikandir was on his way to school, he found a gun lying on the road. He made this gun a part of his life and whoever would bully or thrash him, he would just show them the gun and get rid of all the problems which he earlier had. Meanwhile, he comes across a jihadi who starts teaching him how to shoot, so that he could be trained to kill a politician as the first task. Sikandir was innocent and gets entrapped in this. However, his friend Nasreen stops him from shooting the politician. When Sikandir returns, the jihadi named Zehgeer Khan thrashes him for missing the target. While he was beating Sikandir, Skinadir accidently pulled off the trigger and killed Zehgeer. Meanwhile, the three school boys who would bully him and were scared off by his gun, managed to get hold of his gun and while they were joking around about Jihad and Zehfeer, one of the militants informers , who was passing by thought that they had killed Zehgeer. Eventually they get killed by militants as well. Meanwhile, the army, the politicians, the religious leaders come to know that Sikandir had killed Zehgeer. While the army starts searching for him, Sikandit starts hiding. On his friend’s Nasreen’s advice, he goes to visit the religious scholars by wearing a burka(veil) and a bag brought to him by Nasreen. However, Nasreen seems to be used by the politician to kill the religious leaders (who had sympathies with jihadis) through Sikandir. When Sikandir goes to meet clerics in the mosque wearing the school bag brought by Nasreen, a bomb blast takes place and it is identified that there was a bomb in Skandir’s bag. Sikandir runs and hides. Later, he receives some documents and a pistol left by someone outside the cave where he was hiding. This helped him understand the dirty game being played by politician and Nasreen. In the last scenes, the movie shows that when Naseen and the politician were going into the car, Sikandir shot the tyre and halted the car. He pointed gun at the politician and demanded to tell why he was being used. Eventually, the politician also gets killed and the kids realize that they were being used by the militants as well as Jihadists to kill each other. Although the film doesn’t hold many dialogues about Kashmir and if there are any, they totally go against what is happening in reality.

Tahaan

Tahaan is  a  feature  film  that was released in 2010. The film is also based on an innocent 8 year old child named Tahaan who is in love with Birbal, his pet donkey gifted to him by his father. As the film unfolds, the story reveals that Tahaan’s father is missing for about three years and is living with his mother, sister and grandfather. Even though Tahaan’s father hasn’t returned, the family doesn’t want to believe that he is dead.

The family is also shown surrounded by financial crunches; they are indebted to a businessman. The family’s misery is worsened when Tahaan’s grandfather dies and they don’t have enough money to pay the debt. Eventually, the debt had to be cleared by giving away Tahaan’sBirbal, his donkey without which he later finds hard to live alone. His mother later gives him money to get back Birbal. However, to his surprise, he finds out that the businessman had sold his Birbal to a person named SubhanDarr. He follows Subhan and requests him to allow him to work for him as he knew how to get hold of Birbal. Later, he requests SubhanDarr to give him back the Birbal but he refuses. Grieved and saddened, Tahaan ran away from SubhanDarr. In the meanwhile, a militant named Idrees gets hold of Tahaan.  Idrees is a young lad who is shown to be grieved by the killings of his family after a rocket fell on his house. He takes him to his leader “Baba” and promises to get Birbal back for him if he helps him. Eventually as the movie unfolds, Tahaan is seen being entrapped by the militant to throw a hand grenade at Indian army and in return would get back his Birbal. However, just when Tahaan is about to throw grenade at the soldiers, he sees his father being interrogated by the soldiers and instead, he throws the grenade into the lake. Tahaan realizes that he was at fault. On the other, SubhanDarr is convinced by his grandson to give back Tahaan his donkey.  At the end of the movie, Tahaan gets his donkey back.

Throughout the movie, the main theme is that Tahaan doesn’t give up the idea of having Birbal back even after being given away. He goes onto follow Birbal but gets entrapped by a militant who uses Tahaan for his nefarious plans without the knowledge of innocent Tahaan.

Lamhaa-the untold story of Kashmir

Lamhaa is a film based on Kashmir issue; it was released in 2010. The film highlights several complex problems within Kashmir and also provides some historical reference from the past. In the film, it is shown that militants of Lashkar- e -Tayyaba with the support of ISI are planning to derail the upcoming elections in troubled Kashmir so that revolts like tho ones in 1989 Kashmir riots could be started again. To stop this, an intelligence officer named Vikrim is given the task to get hold of this and turn it into a failure.

While the end result is definitely the fact that the plan is successfully wrapped up but it centers around the rifts within the Kashmiri leaders, one group who believes in Jihad and supported by Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and ISI and the other political group who believes that Kashmir issue should be resolved through dialogue and independent Kashmir should be pursued. This difference of opinion has led politicians to target each other. It also shows that militants who are supported by ISI are leaning towards helping people. It also touches the misery of half widows whose husbands are taken away by Indian army never to return back. However to the surprise, this film doesn’t carry too much of the love story flavor. There is definitely a love song between Atif and Aziza but it is not the primary focus rather it is on Kashmir.

Conclusion of content analysis

After the content analysis, this was found that it has been shown in all movies that Kashmiris are innocent, peace loving and loyal to India. They have no problems living within the Indian Dominion. However, there are some non-state actors, most likely supported by some third force to destabilize Kashmir and India. This is the story that every movie comes up with. In many movies, children have been used to convince the audience that Indian Government as well as army is very humane and that insurgents are cruel and trapping kids. In fact, Indian movies are framed in such a way that favors the Indian foreign policy. Same situation is still existing.

Mission Kashmir.  People from Kashmir are innocent and have nothing to do with the freedom movement in Kashmir. There are some mercenaries who come from the other side of line of Control who fight for money. They trap the young Kashmiri boys and their families and use religion to tell them to kill people. The film also highlights that innocent people do get killed in Kashmir but, at the end of the day, it supports the fact that it is just a collateral damage and no other intention is there behind the killings.

It shows that Hindu, Sikh, Muslims are living in complete harmony in India and as such have no problems.

Overall, the movie Fanaa is dominated by the love story of Rehan and Xuni whereas, terrorism associated with Kashmir is ostensibly a secondary theme that has been touched. In this film, Kashmiris are shown as generally peace loving and beautiful people who are as loyal to India as any other Indian in other parts of the India. It also shows that Kashmiris do not desire to be independent. However, they are a bunch of Kashmiris, usually young men who are associated with a terrorist organization who wish to kill innocent Indians for the sake of getting independence for Kashmir. This film in no way hints that Pakistan is supporting the terrorists to cause havoc within India. Rather, it gives an impression that the terrorists are an equal threat to both India and Pakistan.

The film Sikandir clearly lacks the charisma to grab the attention of people. The whole mood of the film was tense. It showed too much violence. It didn’t provide any historical background of the Kashmir issue. It over-emphasized violence that may have penetrated in the lives of Kashmiris. However, it showed that innocent Kashmiri children are basically entrapped by militants as well as Kashmiri politicians for their nefarious plans and dirty games.

Tahaan also focuses on the theme that Kashmir is a peaceful valley and belongs to people of peace and harmony who apparently have no problems staying in Kashmir of India. It focuses on the idea that militants entrap innocent children to attack Indian soldiers. Various scenes like Curfew, sound of gunshots, presence of army reminds viewers of the idea that Kashmir is a troubled region but doesn’t clearly give a historical background of the Kashmir issue. Like every other Indian movie on Kashmir, this movie also shows a terrorized world of Kashmir. The people may be called in by army anytime and may be taken away for interrogation. They may enter your house in the middle of night and search your house. However, it doesn’t touch the cruelty of Indian forces.

The movie Lamhaa is one of important and considerable movies that could be clearly dedicated to the Kashmir issue. It is not to say that it presents reality in true sense but it has tried to focus complex problems associated with the Kashmir issue in a more political perspective. It holds a love story but it is not the primary focus. It is bolder as compared to many other movies. It clearly names ISI and Laskhar e Tayyaba as the two entities that are backing militants and supporting the secessionist elements. It also offers a historical account of the Kashmir issue and also the 1989 riots, something which no other movie on Kashmir has so boldly touched.

Question: What is the impact of Bollywood movies on Pakistani youths?

These are seen in Figures 1-11.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the light of survey results, the following answers for the research questions have been given by respondents.

Majority of Pakistani youths do not think that Indian movies have resulted in any change of opinion regarding Kashmir issue, rather 47% said they felt angry, 32% said that they were sad after watching the movies. When asked about the reason in detail, many of them said that the movies have portrayed one sided picture and showed a biased approach. That again, proves that Indian movies have remained unsuccessful in influencing the opinion of Pakistani youths.

The main goal of the Indian movies was to convey to the audience that “Kashmiris are innocent people being entrapped by the mercenaries. They have as such no problem living in India.” However, when asked from the Pakistani youths, 75% said that Kashmir should be part of Pakistan and 91% said that Kashmir shouldn’t be part of India.  Not  only  that, 90% believed that Kashmiris had  been portrayed as terrorists and only 2% believed that Kashmiris had been portrayed as peace loving in the Indian movies related to Kashmir issue.

When this question was asked to the youths, 83% said that Indian movies did not represent reality whereas only9% thought that they depicted reality. Clearly this showed that youths didn’t accept the message that was portrayed through the Indian movies related to Kashmir issue. 

Another interesting figure suggests that 70% of respondents believed that Indian movies acted as sheer propaganda to advance Indian foreign policy. Probably, the respondents understood already that the Bollywood movies based on Kashmir would not depict reality rather distort history and facts.

Suggestions

The results prove the magic bullet theory wrong that media has uniform, immediate and direct effects. The message that Bollywood movies were trying to inculcate in the minds of Pakistani youths could not make much sense to our youths, rather they stuck to the thinking that has been nurtured within them in Pakistani society, that is, Kashmir should be a part of Pakistan. In fact, 72% respondents demanded that Indian movies based on Kashmir should be banned in Pakistan. It is because 88% felt that Kashmiris have been portrayed as only terrorist and 70.2% felt that even in these movies, Hindus have been portrayed as good human beings that Muslims, thereby pointing out at the hated of typical Hindu mindset against Muslims in the subcontinent. The majority of Pakistani youths take these movies as only propaganda.

After the advancement of information and communication technology and various satellite TV Channels in Pakistan, our film industry also should focus on Kashmir issue in their films and highlight the Pakistani viewpoint very effectively and very creative and argumentative way.

The author has not declared any conflict of interests.